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CVU students push back on federal probe APRIL 2, 2026
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
BY JASON STARR Observer staff
With radio silence coming from the U.S. Department of Education about its alleged investigation into the Champlain Valley School District’s policy of allowing students to participate in sports in accordance with their gender identity, CVU students are taking the issue into their own hands. It was Transgender Day of Visibility on Tuesday, and at a bustling intersection of hallways near the high school lobby, the CVU Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club had set up a table. On display was information about the investigation — which blindsided school administrators when the federal government announced it in January — and a template of a letter to elected officials. Club members encouraged students and staff alike to sign the letter, or write their own original version, asking elected representatives to support their transgender constituents and defend the school district’s transgender policy. By day’s end, the club had 220 letters ready to mail to local, state and federal politicians. For student Deacon Brown, the motivation to sign came from his personal connection to the school’s transgender students. “This (federal investigation) goes against so much of what I hold dear because it goes against them,” he said. “This administration has already done a lot of bad, and now it’s doing bad on a personal level. That’s why I’m taking a stand to fight it … And how we fight is by doing things like this.” The Department of Education announced the investigation in
Molly Marino, left, and Lena Smith of the CVU Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club staff a letter-writing table Tuesday at the high school encouraging students and staff to speak out against a federal investigation into the school’s transgender policy. OBSERVER PHOTO BY JASON STARR
a Jan. 14 news release from its Office for Civil Rights, framing it as protection for the rights of women and girls to have equal access to school sports. The CVSD policy of allowing students to participate in accordance with their gender identity was first adopted in 2021 and updated by the school board last fall. The Department of Education alleges that the policy amounts to a violation of “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” “The Office of Civil Rights is aggressively pursuing allegations of discrimination against women and girls by entities which reportedly allow males to compete in women’s sports,” Assistant
Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in the news release. “Violations of women’s rights, dignity, and fairness are unacceptable.” Champlain Valley was among 18 school districts and colleges geographically spread from Hawaii to Maine that were named. The Department of Education claims that the investigations were initiated by complaints submitted to its Office of Civil Rights. But the office has not shared details of any specific complaint with CVSD administrators. In addition, calls to a contact phone number on the investigation announcement lead to a recording that has, for months, said: “The U.S. Department of
Education’s Information Resource Center is temporarily closed at this time.” Nonetheless, CVSD Superintendent Adam Bunting submitted a response to the investigation in February. The district has yet to receive any further communication about it. Lena Smith, president of the CVU Gender and Sexuality Alliance club, joined club member Molly Marino on Tuesday staffing the letter-writing table. They described club members’ initial reactions to news of the investigation. “There was a lot of anger and a lot of sadness,” Smith said. A sense of fear lingers because
it is unclear where the investigation will lead. “We have no idea what’s coming,” she said. In meetings over the winter, club members brainstormed ways to respond, starting with visual displays of support for transgender students around the school. The idea for a letter-writing campaign came from another club’s prior success with it. “We knew we had to do something,” Marino said. Tuesday’s action not only produced 220 letters, it also served to educate members of the CVU community that may have been unaware of the investigation; students weren’t notified directly, Smith and Marino said. Rather, emails were sent to parents and staff. Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club faculty advisor Lena Kirillova noted that the federal investigation has raised the profile of the district’s Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students policy, spotlighting the ways the district supports transgender and gender nonconforming students. Among the policy’s provisions: it requires school staff to respect requests by students to be addressed by their chosen name and pronouns; it states that students will not be required to use restrooms that conflict with their actual or perceived gender identity; and it allows participation in sports in accordance with a student’s actual or perceived gender identity. “The policy is pretty explicit,” Kirillova said. “Some students knew about it before this, but this has helped students research more into it and realize what the policy says.”
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